Looking Out.
Looking In.
Always Edgy.

19 March 2009

Communing with nature ain't in my nature

Our family wanted to savor the last bit of summer sun
and fun before the schools reopened.We signed up early when a friend wondered if we wanted to be part of an
eighteen family camping bash under the redwoods at Big Sur’s Pfeiffer State
Park.Finally, our family was
going to commune with nature.

We set about pitching our tents in the sunniest spot on an open meadow.As we unfurled
the green and white nylon tent from its dapper carrying case, my husband said
something he has said everyday since I married him.

“Now read the instruction manual.Tell me the first step.”

“It says take the tent out of the bag,” I began.But for the sound of gnashing teeth and
gurgling brooks, all was quiet in Big Sur. “Cross the rods as shown in this
diagram.”

“Which rods?” My husband grabbed the manual away from
me.“Now I’ll read it and you do
it.”

“Here to do the dirty work, as usual,” I grunted
grumpily.“Okay, so which rods?” I
barked, looking around the way a woman does when she is lost, the way a man
never does when he is lost. “Let’s ask one of our buddies to help us.”

“Are you crazy? This is simple. Insert the rods into the
pins at the four corners!”

“Which four corners?” I couldn’t see any corners but I could
count at least a hundred pins.

“Don’t tell me you can’t see the four corners?” His voice had an edge to it, the
kind of edge that knows it’s cornered, once and for all.We were going to be hammered and nailed
for being the slowest to pitch a tent. It didn’t help that we hadn’t even
brought a hammer. Asking to borrow one would be like being caught at Customs at
Singapore’s Changi with a suitcase bursting with slabs of Wrigley’s spearmint.
When you’re outdoors you want to show that you’re an outdoors kind of person,
that you’ve done this just about all your life.

“Reading the manual, you guys? Don’t even bother!”
jeered a friend's voice from the far end of our campsite.

“Where’s your tarpaulin?” asked another friend’s ten-year
old son who wandered in, watching in awe as we tried to drill in the stakes
into the unrelenting ground with our sneakers.This kid was probably born at a campsite.

“Tarpaulin? What tarpaulin? Whose tarpaulin?”

“The thing you need to lay out before you bring out
your tent. You know. So the base of your tent won’t tear.” No, we didn’t know. All the list had said was to
bring a tent.

Pretty soon I found out that not everyone in our
group was a happy camper, after all. Not everyone liked to sleep in a tent under the stars
where every howl of the wind pummeled and lifted you up high above the trees,
where every rustle of the trees was like the pounding rhythm of rain, where
every tiny sound wave impinging upon our nylon barrier reached the ear-drum,
magnified a thousand times.

“For ten thousand years my ancestors have worked hard
to bring me to where I am today.Why would I want to go back to where they started?” said a late arrival
into our campsite.This was a
friend who liked camping only by day. By night, however, he retired to his
plush suite at Carmel Highlands Inn where a Jacuzzi soothed him from the rough
ride of a bad hair day on a warm meadow.He dreamt on a tight spring King-size Sealy Posturepedic while we
thrashed about on a four square foot bed of rocks and gravel, with just a
borrowed, ripped tarpaulin for protection from the forces of nature. The only
thing he heard after his head touched the pillow was the blare of the alarm
clock at 8 am.The rest of us, all
seasoned adventurers, retired on Medusa’s head with gregarious critters for
company.We listened to the
tireless teeter of blue jays fighting over crackers, the cranky chirp of
crickets acting crummy over campers’ crumbs, the slow snarl of a mountain lion
stalking a lowly creature on a forgotten trail. Yes indeed, our alarms went off
through the night.

Dawn ambled in at long last.Our fears melted away as fast as the nocturnal raccoons fled
with their share of strawberry fruit rolls. We didn’t dare balk at the idea of
a three-hour hike that someone suggested to work off a hearty breakfast of
pancakes and scrambled eggs. The most we walked in civilized San Jose was when
we took out the weekly trash from our side-yard all the way to the curb.Returning hikers were encouraging.“Watch out for rattlesnakes.I saw one as I started out on my
trail!” a young man warned us as our huge, noisy group began our hike up to
Pfeiffer Falls.

The
smell of pine rose from the forest floor as our feet crunched dried brown
leaves in our path.Rattlesnakes,
mountain lions, blue jays and acorn-woodpeckers throng this wooded park where
it is twilight even in full sunlight.Tall California pines weave a lacy network of leaves and filter in just
enough of the sun’s rays to keep the place damp, cool and mossy all the year
round. At a tiny museum en route, a mountain lion lies in wait at its perch,
its eerie stillness the only giveaway of a stuffed personality.Rattlesnake skins, raccoon fur, the
remains of a dinosaur’s jaw and other artifacts are on display in this little
tribute to the park’s wonders.

The hypnotic scent of the California Bay laurel, a
close inedible cousin of the Turkish Bay Leaf, egged us on deeper into the
trail where poison ivy twirls innocently around verdant ferns.Lavender daisies with bright yellow
middles peeped out prettily from rocks. We could have climbed on forever.
Camping in the wild had rekindled my spirit of adventure, a spirit that had
lain dormant under suffocating folds of motherhood and drudgery.No arduous trek seemed beyond me.
Nothing seemed impossible that afternoon - until the icy waves of the Northern
Pacific Ocean licked my feet.

As we sat at Pfeiffer beach, huddled in jackets
and shawls, some in our fearless herd began to contemplate climbing a gigantic
rock promontory rising from the ocean bed.Treacherous, frothy waves crashed and bored in through
gaping holes in the rocks below.Above, brave hearts climbed the steep, jagged rock surface for a
spectacular view of the coastline. “Climbing that rock is not for the faint-hearted!” said an intrepid female
companion. “The last time we were helped up by five men.”

As the wind steadily picked up grains
of sand and hurled them angrily into our faces, I longed for the comfort of my
van where nothing, not the water, not the sand, not even the wind could get at
me. Throw caution to the winds?Heavens, no, I yearned to go home and let my body sink into a soft,
reassuring bed buttressed by ten pneumatic layers of goose down mattress pads.